Readers' comments

I think Weirdo is better than Twitter because Twitter is extremely null.I believe if China wasn't block Twitter, it cannot be popular in China just like Facebook. Few years ago, when Chinese monetize can log in Facebook, people are not interested in Facebook. they mostly prefer Renee http://www.azsearchforhomes.com/phoenix/tramonto-real-estate

There are upward of 100 million Chinese living under the poverty line, while Wen Jiabao family stole US$2.7 billion from the pocket of those people who are said to be living under the Chinese socialism?
How many homeless cats can the family of Wen feed?

By the way all homeless cats usually show up in the kitchen of the restaurants in Peking and Shanghai for world famous Chinese haute cuisines. Check below;

so wen is no good by you---fine with me. off he goes.
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it still beats the 'plaza accord' when the master called due the fortunes it bestowed to war loser japanese people that caused japan hung high and dry for decades.
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you can't blame the master though, what caesar gave, caesar can certainly take, and it looks like the master did a pretty nifty job there.
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now each japanese is up to its neck in debtness (230% of GDP, with most japns people, not foreigners, playing suckers holding the pan. that's about 3 times that of G7, per capita wise). the outlook ain't good, pal.

not anymore, kido, or like the us troops in Tokyo used to say---boy, (and where have you been all these years since 2008?)

because japns central bank plays japns people (esp. pensioners, retirees....) for suckers for years, their live savings are now government debts thanks to the japns banks. only about 8% of japns debts are held by foreigners.

the super low cost of japns financing (the 10-year bond yields only 0.715%, far lower than america’s 1.62%, or germany’s 1.37%. ) further masked for a long time the danger of japns financial cliff that may bust open anytime soon.

the japns bubble will then burst before you know it. before that to happen, the decline and decay already are unprecedented and sad indeed.

and therefore the influence by foreign owners of japanese bond shall not affect much of the japanese bond market. plus japan is the world largest creditor to outside world.
we had the burst of bubble laready.
next is most probably china.
that is why most of your corrupt riches in china have moved the asset illegaly to outside and even further those corrupt riches, many of which are government officials, have moved their children overseas and obtained visas.
who are more nationalistic, boy?
and who want to stay living in china where homeless cats are cooked at restaurants in shanghai and peking as chinese haute cuisine illegaly? do you like cats or dogs?

hehe, so them chinese eat nothing but homeless cats and stray dogs every day (never mind they are world's largest grower of rice, wheat, pork and aquaculture products)---- all the way to beat out the once also good japan economy---an economy sprung out of american charity and generosity and japanese abject subservience to its occupier. that's all.
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as such there is nothing japns should brag about.
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I love japns people, but japns food? yeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiik. who in his right mind would care for raw fish carcass? and murdering whales for food? get out of here!
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small wonder you admitted you love chinese food in your post!!!

Devils Advocate_1in reply to Sandaman0 mins ago
[Sandamanin reply to Devils 1st, 12:44
My view is
corruption in China is as ghoulish as organ trafficking in China. It is just outrageous.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/opinion/engaging-beijing-on-organ-pillag...]

Nothing can be more ghoulish as screwing one's own mother. How often do you do that, San?

[SandamanNov 24th, 13:50
Wen Jiabao's family has built $2.7 billion in China where there are still 100 million people living under poverty line.
There are so many rich who pay whatever the price for chic.

Their corrupt money is just piling up and buying up wineyard everywhere. Their stomach is bottomless.]

Apparently, the NYT reporter could not found anything illegal with Wen's family-- Just like incest in Japan.

Not just this one, there are all sorts of books finger pointing corruptions and abuses of power in Chinese bookstores. Corruptions and embezzlements are big, big problems in China today IMO, but as compared to other happenings, good or bad and mostly good, it’s been undeservingly blown way out of proportion in the West.

I have just been back from a work trip to Qingdao, having the good fortune of ridding for the first time through Qingdao’s newly completed 7 plus Km cross Jiaozhou Bay mouth tips tunnel and the 37 some km cross-bay bridge, said the world’s longest over water bridge (the other 35 plus km Hangzhou Bay bridge completed several years earlier has a large section over land). They are imposing and magnificent of course, but Qingdao is but only one example out of so many cities with fast track development.

Development does wet appetite for corruption and abuses, but the point being, you don’t build such infrastructures all over a nation or by the same token quadruple average citizen’s income in 10 years flat (from 2002 to 2011) out of massive corruptions and misconducts. The good must have had overwhelmed the bad and the ugly in China in its national reform and opening up.

Or else, ‘massive corruptions and misconducts’ would be the virtue and requisite practices of good government taught at every B school.

[tocharianin reply to Stop Bamar WarcrimesJune 14th, 04:29
The Chinese of course, are having a Schadenfreude moment. They want to divide and conquer Burma. Let the barbarians fight each other as Sun-Tzu would say!]

It is the Economist that is "having a Schadenfreude moment" on Burma with this article. Yet again, you are blaming the Chinese for it. Do you have to "KNOW YOUR PLACE" in front of the whites? Can't you have some backbone? moe sung has a lot of backbone. Learn some lessons from him!

[Stop the Chinese Myitsone dam (and all the otherones they want to build in Burma)

Stop the gas/oil pipeline

Stop the naval seaport at Kyaukphru (which is incidentally very close to where this rape and murder of a girl happened)]

{[tocharianin reply to guest- 1st, 08:17

...If Burma is so rich in natural resources, the Burmese people should profit from it too (like the Arabs) and if Burma does not have any natural resources, then what are the Chinese doing there? Of course, nations are selfish and countries try to maximise their benefits and exploit others, but then China should not be too sensitive if the exploited people start complaining. Burmese also have a right to look after their own interests. All human beings are created equal and no one likes arrogant bullies (Germany tried that a few decades ago).]

You hate the Chinese not because they take Burma's resource but because they are Chinese. After all, unlike the Western colonialists, China pays for the resources it gets with real goods and services. Even if it were Uncle who take Burma's wealth, you would still blame China and the Chinese for it-- Like you have done in other circumstances:

{[tocharian May 11th, 06:37

Corruption, Coercion and Control is how China has been ruled for millennia and the majority of the Han Chinese seem to really believe that this Chinese way of governance is a deeply imbedded characteristic of Chinese Confucian culture and hence (by default) far superior to the more "chaotic" Hans-Solo-style Western political ideas of "freedom, dignity and sanctity of the individual human being".]

The Chinese do NOT believe their 'Confucian culture' is 'far superior to the more "chaotic" Hans-Solo-style Western political ideas'. That is why they do NOT try to impose their social values on Western societies.

It is the imperialist West that believe THEIR Western culture is "far superior" to other cultures. That is why they go around the world kicking arses in order to impose their system on the rest of the world.

Can't you be honest for once in your entire miserable life???}

{tocharianMay 27th, 17:23

[ This "new G2 world order" that the US wants to create with China is extremely fishy and precarious. This neo-liberal thinking about "we are all friends" and the whole world will converge to equality, liberty and fraternity (and Wall Street) is a dangerous "Fata Morgana". It is not going to happen in China and a few other countries, because China basically wants to defeat the US to become the single dominating superpower and many Chinese (even amongst those that live or study in the West and hold American passports) are brainwashed into believing that this is China's "manifest destiny" given their "2,000 years of culture and world-domination (with a few breaks)".]

It was the neo-cons, not the Chinese communists, who said something like "We will not again allow a peer competitor to emerge"-- In order to remain "the single dominating superpower" in this world. Even some non-whites, who instinctively know their places in front of the whites (like tocharian does), "are brainwashed into believing that" this is the "manifest destiny" all non-white peoples.
Again, can't you be honest for once in the whole of your miserable life?}

Yet again, can't you be honest for once in the whole of your miserable life?

[By the way, at the personal level, I have been dealing with Chinese people almost all my life, not just in Burma. It doesn't matter where I live, I see them almost everyday. I never had any problems with most of them (of course, there are always a few unpleasant people everywhere)]

There is certainly a very "unpleasant" Burmese "professor" on the Economist forum here.

I've not yet read Mr Wang's book, but I will do so soon. I am wondering whether such kind of "muckraking" (remember the stables of Augias'?) will be a first step in democratizing China. I'm no fan of the death penalty on the other hand. This great country has undergone so many bloody "purifications", that it's time to change course. Ridicule them, drag them on the frontpage, take their illegal wealth from them, but let them live! They were asked to enrich themselves, weren't they?

Death penalty in China is indispensable for Organ Trafficking.
It is a big income for the officials at the prisons.
Each year more than 1,000 death penalties are executed in China.
But it is still the small part of the actual organ trafficking.

"Weird Asian News" and "The Epoch Times". You really scrounge the internet looking for any possible source of negative information on China, don't you? To be fair, "Weird Asian News" is probably substantially more credible than the epoch times.

'Out of honest curiousity, why do you hate China so much?'
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he had no choice. he is trapped between a deep guilt of war atrocities and the loss of self respect of being from an occupied country even 63 years after the war. he mistakenly thinks hatred is his only way out.

he does not know there is lots of love, forgiveness and care out there outside of japan.

I feel pity for this guy. they are still 'wang guo lu/ 亡国奴' for so long (since the end of ww2). their phobia of not being even nominally respected as an ordinary citizen of any nation on earth is further exasperated due to the decline and decay of the occupied japan.

I do not hate China.
I love Chinese food so much, but I do not want to eat homeless cats. There is no guarantee in China that I would not encounter such meat.
I cannot trust those money monger Chinese.
I cannot trust those money monger corrupt CCP officials like Wen.
That is all.

"but you know what? there is no stopping now of china's progress toward being more prosperous no matter how much bashing mud is thrown at it to deter. so bash all you like, it won't even rate an 'ooouch'."

well, bashing cannot stop as long as you commit crimes like
Exporting corruption and building defect infrastructure;

As opposed to Western economies that grow for the benefit of poor countries?

Faulty designs and mismanagement of General Electric were behind the Fukushima Daiichi disaster of 2011. By your logic, it seems the American appetite is larger than just the poor countries. They are destroying their strategic allies, too.

And don't even mention the Deepwater Horizon spill. All that sticky oil can't be good for nature, is it? Where's your outrage against Britain then? Or are you sublimating some sort of visceral hatred here?

well now, my dear sandaman. quit worrying. foreign policy wise, japan is nothing but a subservient tool of its occupier the us.

japan is not an independent nation either, and most of post war japns might (no. 2 in the world) in wealth and economy came from american benevolence of opportunities and tech transfers given to japn.

japanese are still 'wang guo lu/ 亡国奴' since the end of ww2. japns election means zilch (the us changes japns prime ministers it didn't like just like that, like changing diapers.)

it's too bad that a few japanese right wingers (are you oe of them?) now are not smart enough to see their nation's plight of non-repentance and are raping the will of japanese people for more militarism.

now even americans are beginning to be alarmed about japanese right wingers’ bidding their time to arm themselves and to do another 'pearl harbour' again against the usa.
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but don’t you worry, the us has japan covered top to bottom. that’s why everybody (but japanese) welcomes continued occupation of japan by the us foreces.

Constitutionaly,China is being increasing poor.You guys may saw many chinese wealth people "rub" luxury ,that is just a illusion.The polarse of wealth in China is extremely severe.our average salary is about 3000RMB,simutaneously wo have wo in face of the most expensive oil and the terrible inflation.You may wonder that is enough,actually,never enough.we live in a society whithout safe net.so mant of us want to be a civil servant.a least ,wo can get the pension and medical benefit.No mater how dark the officialdom is.

it takes all kinds to rebuild a nation like china----dedicated, corrupted, unscrupulous and scums who'd sell his grandma to foreigners for some personal gain.

but you know what? there is no stopping now of china's progress toward being more prosperous no matter how much bashing mud is thrown at it to deter. so bash all you like, it won't even rate an 'ooouch'.

The political donations by unions brought them the fat contracts that bankrupted their country.
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What do the rich and big corps get in return from their donation?
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That, is the size of corruption in China.
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The corruption in West is far more serious than that in West. The only difference is that media doesn't want to expose it which will tarnish the reputation of their favorite system. As as result, "free" thinking people never think of it.
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How can people claim "we are free" while ignoring the obvious question "What did the rich get in return from their donation?"
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Are they so stupid to believe that the rich donate for people? The only explanation is that "free thinking" people are brainwashed.

snooping around is one of human natures, which makes such a novel as Public servant’s notebook 公务员日记 one of the bestsellers of the same sort in mainland, and that reminds me of four novels in the late Qing dynasty 1644-1911 that depict corrupted officials in government at different levels. The same book also jogs my memory to another book titled "All the President's Men” by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein that leads to the exposure of the notorious Watergate scandal in the 1970s in the US. Much later the Deep Throat came to light.
It is however unwise to make comparison between the novel and the book by two American journalists in that the former is a fiction with tremendous stretches of imaginations whereas the latter a documentary writing based in large part on truth.
Corruptions are as rampant as anyone can suppose in current China, and that is vitsl importance both the country and its people. And thus the publication of the novel reflects, among other things the eagerness from the bottom of society to crackdown corruptions in China today. On one hand, TE correspondents did a good job to inform its readers of such a book showing the other side of the picture. On the other hand, more homework should have been done to report what’s happening in China. Instead of ‘a complete overhaul of the current system’, what is on top of the agenda is political reforms with anti-corruptions within the CCP being the first step.

Following are introduction to the author of the mentioned book in Chinese. Chinese characters are typed in traditional way for the sake of overseas readers.
王曉方，遼寧瀋陽人，生於六十年代，理學碩士，混跡官場多年。現為職業作家。相信人的全部尊嚴就在於思想，是一個敢於直面靈魂的人，卻又自比一條躲在水裡的魚，因為魚只有躲在水裡才會最安全。作家是魚，文學的海，愛上文學，當然就海闊憑魚躍了。著有長篇小說《致命旋渦》、《少年本色》、《駐京辦主任》等。《致命旋渦》一經出版便引起廣泛關注。長篇小說《心靈莊園》獲得新浪網第二屆華語原創文學大獎賽優秀長篇小說篇。

Innumerable such books online in simplified Chinese are available if only you can read Chinese. Some of them are written in a more obdurate and sardonic way that makes you as thrilled as reading wiki-leak provided you were not to be brainwashed.

It is book 一号首长? The synopsis read sound like it, but the author's name is different. It was extremely popular online book (later published), and definitely writing by someone on the inside, though I wonder how things will translate. Many the plots drew the dragon without drawing the eye, and the read has to draw the eye themselves or have to have enough background knowledge to actually get all the references and allusions. Just hope a western read won't draw the eye in the wrong place and misunderstands the book and the issues.

Chinese bureaucracy is one of the most competitive political systems out there.

Each career bureaucrat fights tooth and nail in one of the world's most competitive environments. Nothing is sacred, no bribe, no patronage. The main purpose is to game the system without changing it, extracting as many benefits as possible as each hopeful bureaucrat ascends the ladder.

What scant regulation exists is wielded as a weapon and leverage by the most successful.

The most successful of course are those born into power, the princelings of those Chinese political dynasties where power and influence concentrates at the very top as an oligopoly.

A truly dog-eats-dog world.

People have got it wrong when they say the Chinese model is flawed. It is actually the best existing example of competitive market theory implemented in a political system.

Did you even read the Economist latest article about the "Golden Rice Bowl". The vast majority of civil servants in China are not in a dog eat dog world. Most Chinese civil servants only have a high school degree, and are content to clock in and clock out, like most civil servants in other countries. Few of the Chinese civil servants are in the rat race you talk about. How smart do you have to be to be an administrative clerk? Seriously, you talk as if they are going to kill each other just to be chief paper pusher making $400 / month. Come on.

Its not a apt analogy. Its not as competitive as people make it out to be. Looking at the number of exam takers its less competitive in the 1990s, and is till far less competitive than the Indian IAS. Most of the senior Chinese bureaucrats are products of the Cultural Revolution, poorly educated, and not the brightest. Many of the smartest most likely left for the West in the early 1980s when China started sending students abroad.

First, China is a decentralized system, Beijing never has held a lot of power unlike in centralized countries like Thailand. Many central government departments don't have regional offices in China. Alot of their functions are done through local governments.

Local governments (provinces/local government) generate 30-50% of their own revenue, The rest comes from Beijing. In fact local governments control 70% of the government spending in China. In the early 1990s it was about 90%. Furthermore, local governments can go into debt, keep debt off the book (Local Enterprise Entities) The local CPC officials have alot of power, whether county/provincial.

The central government is weak in China, and those elites you talk about (people like Xi Jinping or Bo Xilai) are weaker then they would otherwise be in a more centralized system. People like Xi Jingping/Bo Xilai rotate in and out of government positions, take stints in the local government, then central government offices. Most of the time they become CPC chief in a province for 5 years (or even shorter), then they rotate them out. The guy who calls the shots on a day to day basis is usually the Governor of a Province. Often their whole careers are spent in one province.

What makes the system successful is 1) Decentralization 2) Performance Indicators that are simple. Basically from the county / township head to the provincial head they are largely measured on GDP growth and population control. If it was that competitive, why do some village chiefs hold the positions for 30-40 years?

If you really want a system to be competitive, why don't you just privatize and hand it over to the private sector.

Bismark, in your vast knowledge and wisdom, how would you compare China's bureaucracy/political system in terms of corruption, centralization, and general effectiveness to the systems of the world's other large middle income countries: Brazil and Russia.

India is decentralized, but only to the State level. District/municipal governments aren't elected, and are almost always appointed by the state. Often they don't have much power or resources.

To be frank, alot of the people spend too much time arguing democracy vs authoritarianism, but alot of India's problems is due to a lack decentralization. Municipal governments are weak. Mumbai is a classic example. Its ruled by an elected council that appoints the mayor. But the real power remains in the hands of the state government.

China is the most decentralized country in Asia, and 20 years ago, it was even more decentralized, with the regional governments collecting and spending 80% of the revenue. Now revenue collection is down to 45%, but they still spend about 70-80% of all government expenditure in China. How they do it now is the regional govt collect 45% and spend it there, the central government collects the 55%, which they then transfer the bulk of it over to the local governments to spend. That is the primary way they help alleviate regional disparities in China. Guangdong will get less than it otherwise would, and Tibet more.

I'll explain why decentralization is a key, and often neglected factor that underpin China's growth. One way to illustrate the problem is to describe how decisions are made in centralized bureaucracies in a country that is large in terms area and population. I am very familiar with Indonesia.

In the Suharto period, most of the money was concentrated in the center (80%) of revenue was collect and spent in the center. Each central department will propose a project(s). The project(s) will be sent over to the National Planning Board, and they in their infinite wisdom will decide whether it fits with the the over all five year plan, and how it will help a regions development. They do this primarily by consulting their regional planning offices. If they say OK it gets sent back to the relevant department and they will start implementing it through their regional offices. If a road was being built in Papua (a province in Indonesia), the local Public Works Department won't actually have much say. The logic behind it is that many of the local government's were short staffed and did not have alot of capability. You can just imagine that even a ten KM stretch of road in Papua has to be approved by bureaucrats in Jakarta, 3 time zones away.

After the fall of Suharto, the Indonesians implemented decentralization, along with democratic reforms.

However, going back to China, to understand how a decentralized bureaucracy is a plus. Assume its 1983, as the district Party Chief you managed to secure investment to build factories in the middle of a rice field. The only link they have is a dirt road. Now you don't have the budget to improve the road, but the investors are willing to spend their own money to build the road. As Party Chief you "approve" their request. Here is an interesting article.

In a more centralized system, this type of thing just won't happen, because the central Public Works Department would want a piece of the action.

How the CPC (Center) controls local officials is through the Organization Department of the CPC, which determines promotions. For most of the last 30 years, CPC Officials are largely graded by how well they boast GDP and implementing Population Control. Its simple, and they often overlook over things. The evaluation system is more or less consistent for those running a district/township and a province.

A good system is one that allows ordinary bureaucrats to do extraordinary things. There is no guarantee you will get the best, and if your whole system depends on getting the smartest, its not a good system or for society. The Global Times had an article lamenting the number of people taking the Civil Service Exam this year. China fell behind the West, because of the Confucian obsession with becoming a Civil Servant.

The compulsive instinct to corruption observed among the Han who run things (or do business) over there (or over here) is most comforting and encouraging. Very possibly they will 'do themselves in' - saves us the trouble.
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An adversary's character flaws should be nurtured and cherished.

Besides the moral problem with wishing anyone harm, corruption as a destabilizing agent to a society may be exaggerated, making your wish unlikely to come true. Newly emerging countries have always been described by their older (and jealous) competitors as being more corrupt, loutish, and in general... so inelegant, leading many to predict their demise through these qualities. Needless to say, they have mostly been disappointed, starting with end-of-the-century Englishmen warily eyeing the rise of the United States.

"A Han talking about morality - that's rich, guy. Tell that shit to a 2-year-old who has the misfortune to get tangled-up in the wheels of a Chinese delivery truck, buddy."

The child who was hit by a truck and ignored by passerby's was notable precisely because situations like that were uncommon. The same week that incident occured another child in Guangdong got hit by a car and the driver rushed him to the hospital and paid for his medical expenses. Whereas the first incident made international news, the second incident never made it past local news. The same week as both of those incidents, an 8 year old boy was abducted and murdered in New York during his first attempt to walk home from school. No reasonable person would claim that event was representative of the morality in the USA.

I think a good sign of the moral quality of the Chinese people is that even though they are on average poorer and less educated than Americans, you can walk through the streets of Chinese cities at night with complete confidence that you will not be victimized by thugs, gangsters, or any other type of violent criminals. When a country as rich and well-educated as the USA has a homicide rate four times as high as China's, it is in no position to lecture about morality.

That's rich too, BP - the Han show what they're all about when they poison each others children with adulterated baby food to get some quick yuan, not to mention shit like this -
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h.ttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-30/ex-gm-engineer-husband-found-guilty-of-trade-secrets-theft-1-.html
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"... the moral quality of the Chinese people ..." writ large.
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OBTW - 'Free Tibet'

Adulterated food is immoral, but it is an immorality that members of every society share in when they can get away with it. Do you think the food in India or the Philippines is better? Before the establishment of the FDA, over 800,000 babies died in the USA from adulterated milk. Even today American food companies use their lobbiests and guanxi to maintain the legality of aspartame and other additives and steroids that are well-established to be dangerous. American pharmaceutical companies test potentially dangerous new medications on poor and illiterate Indians with the complicity of the Indian authorities.

Trade secrets and intellectual property rights have no moral value. Intellectual property rights in practice function as a way for large and established companies to suppress small and emerging competitors.

"Free Tibet"
The USA could claim the moral high ground on that if it gave back millions of square miles back to the Native Americans. How much do you want to bet that Tibetan language and culture will survive long after the extinction of the langue and cultures of the Sioux and the Cherokee?

A faulty court system normally helps perpetuate crime, not reduce it. There is no developing country in the world where the common people have access to fair trials and it is commonly observed that this reality contributes to widespread crime and probably plays a role in the petty crime in China.

So lets put everything in context: China has 1. Widespread inequality. 2. Millions of people living in absolute poverty. 3. Poorly educated (by western standrds) workers and farmes. 4. A defective judicial system.

BUT in spite of all of that, China still has less homicide than the USA and the city streets are safer at night. Having a state that is willing to exercise its legitimate monopoloy on violence definitely plays a positive role in this (which in itself shows the state's priorities are in the right place relative to Latin American democracies); but so does the moral character of the Chinese people who eschew violence.

Most of your post amounts to nothing more than relativism. Somehow the terrible actions of one people make the same or similar actions of another people acceptable? I simply don't see the logic here.

Also, trade secrets and intellectual property rights (abused and exploited or not) represent the rule of law, do they not? Isn't 'rule of law' a foundation for a functioning society? Undermining the functioning of a society is not an act that flies in the face of morality in your views?

'[L]egitimate monopoly on violence'? What makes it legitimate? The fact that it exists?

And moral character is a dubious explanation for anything. Moral character is the result of socialisation in a particular society, societal mores are not the result of some pre-existing moral character. This Chinese 'moral character' that eschews violence also refuses to stand up for victims of state violence it knows (or should know) are innocent of any crime.

This leaves the state's willingness to exercise violence in pursuit of 'harmony'. You seem to think this is an unqualified good. Yes it does make the streets safer from non-state criminals, but it also means you don't have to be a criminal to become the victim of state violence. It is sacrificing innocent people, and what is worse in some ways, supporting the lie that they are not innocent (which I know you have not claimed, but which must be the general attitude, or feigned attitude, for such a society to remain stable) purportedly for the general good, but more realistically for the good of the elite.

Violence can be a legitimate reaction to violence. What you really mean by 'moral character' is the poor's having been brainwashed to think that the state is working for their best interests, and that people who come into conflict with the state should be regarded with suspicion (at best).

You say China has less homicide than the US. I presume you are not including judicial homicide in your calculations? Yes it happens behind closed doors (like domestic violence), not on the street, but this does not make it any less disgusting, and the fact that it can go unnoticed makes it in many ways more worrying.

Finally, even if all you say were true, becoming a country with rule of law requires reform. The CCP claim the time is not ripe, but this is because they want to hang onto power for as long as possible. The time will never be ripe if the CCP has it's way. Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea all peacefully transitioned from being one party states to multi-party democracies in circumstances comparable to China's current one (and in the context of similar cultures). These are more relevant points of reference than Russia or South America.

Everything I said about moral character was just a response to MrRFox's frequent comments about the supposedly corrupt moral character of Han. I fully acknowledge that arguments were dubious and I made them because they were directed towards a dubious individual.

But because you now make a similar claim "This Chinese 'moral character' that eschews violence also refuses to stand up for victims of state violence it knows (or should know) are innocent of any crime", I will respond to it.

Throughout history, I do not believe that there has been any other civilization where the common people were as willing to stand up and march against government's that no longer served their interests as China. China has a long history of peasant rebellions and popular revolutions. The CCP obviously came to power in one of those revolutions. I'm sure a China basher such as yourself is well aware of the numerous "mass incidents" that occur throughout China every year. Even though the vast majority of them are just small, non-violent protests; some of them are legitimate riots directed against corrupt officials or policies that do not serve what the people see as their interests. Rather it does seem that it is specifically violent crime that most Chinese people eschew.

Safe streets, far more than the rule of law or democracy, are one of the basic prerequisites of a functioning society. If people can't go about their careers, education, and lives without fear of being victimized by random criminals; society cannot develop and the ability of individuals to develop their own lives is fundamentally diminished. Safety and stability is a common or even absolute good, especially when it exists in the context of a thriving and dynamic society like modern China's.

I would say that 'yes, the state's monopoly on violence is legitimate because it exists'. Even though violence can be a legitimate reaction to violence, it can easily lead to a cycle of violence that leaves millions of people dead and most other people worse off. China has already had more than enough revolutions in the past 160 years. Need I remind you of the Taiping Revolution, the Panthay Rebellion, Boxer Rebellion, numerous other uprising's against the Qing and later against Yuan Shikai, and ultimately the Communist Revolution itself? All of those rebellions had a degree of legitimacy and they all left millions dead and contributed to over a century of relative stagnation.

The Chinese people have thousands of years of acculturation to accept a vast and paternal state, but to say they are brainwashed if anything shows that you've never spent much or any time in China. It is common knowledge that the elite put their own interests first. People accept the present situation primarily because most people's lives really are getting better off. Going by polls from pewglobal, the vast majority of Chinese people continue to say that they are financially better off than before. Despite growing inequality and some inflation, the wages of the workers continue to increase, millions of people benefit from new infrastructure, China's annual educational expenditures are over 7% of the GDP (which is among the highest in the world), the streets are safe, and a social safety net was just set up. Don't expect a revolution.

Yeah, China does need reform, and following the examples of South Korea and Taiwan; the reform needs to come from above. Japan's path to democracy was completely different from Taiwan and South Korea's.

You'll notice that I put the phrase 'moral character' in quotation marks because I do not accept it has any explanatory power (or even that such a thing exists independent of society). I was doing similar to you in responding to an argument in the same terms in which it was made. If you want me to rephrase my claim let me say that 'this tendency within Chinese society to eschew violence should be considered in conjunction with the tendency not to stand up for victims of state violence who are known (or should be know) to be innocent of any crime'.

As for the details of your argument, firstly, you distinguish violent crime from other forms of violence as if these were two natural categories existing independent of a particular state's definition of them. Even shoplifting (for example) can be a form of political protest. I have actually asked a number of Chinese people (in China) if they feel it would be morally justified for a starving person to steal food. Interestingly all of them responded in the negative. Perhaps it is an exaggeration to refer to such an attitude as being a result of brainwashing, but I would be surprised if you do not at least admit it is the result of a worrying acculturation/education to accept the status quo.

Secondly, I would say that people in China are afraid of being randomly victimised. Not by muggers admittedly, but by their boss (sexual harassment / rape is a constant threat for young female Chinese workers for example, and one which they are for the most part expected to endure without complaint), by the police and other 'public security' personnel (I'm sure you've seen what street-vendors have to endure, and yes I know most of them are operating 'illegally', but you will admit that this is not because the authorities really want them to stop trading, it is so they can be dealt with outside the law), or more generally by anyone with a higher level in society, or more guanxi than them.

I don't expect a revolution. But I also don't expect reform to simply 'come from above'. The difference between past Chinese mass mobilisations and the reform movements that led to democracy in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan (and which will hopefully lead to the same in China) is that the former were peasant based and did not lead to significant structural change, whereas the latter were based on a growing middle class and led to structural changes in the political and social constitution of the states in question.

"Throughout history, I do not believe that there has been any other civilization where the common people were as willing to stand up and march against government's that no longer served their interests as China. China has a long history of peasant rebellions and popular revolutions."

I think the correct term for that statement is "white-washing".

The truth is China has a long a exceedingly violent history with most of the "rebellions" you mention being a large quantity of susceptible people being mis-lead by charasmatic (if not insane) personality cults. Most of them are not of the popular uprising variety you seem to allude to by placing them in such a context.

As for Chinese eschewing violence I see nothing exemplary in being ranked average when compared to the rest of the world. To note: China has twice the violent crimes as neighboring Japan.

I'm not attempting to demonize the Chinese in any way here but your erroneous statements are mis-leading at best and propaganda at worst. Hiding behind "I fully acknowledge that arguments were dubious and I made them because they were directed towards a dubious individual." is simply cowardice. And your employment of relativism is not only typical of most pro-Chinese commentors here it is also rather tedious.

Before I take the time to respond to your points, I want to clarify your main ideas:
The Chinese are brainwashed and oppressed by an immoral elite, and the Chinese have always been brainwashed and oppressed by an immoral elite. Even when Chinese people rose up against the established elite, they were just being brainwashed and mislead by someone else (who may have been insane). Despite this evident susceptibility to brainwashing, the solution to these problem is rise up and establish a democratic government. Democracy will also free the Chinese from the evils of elitism and sexual harassment in the work place. But, alas, the Chinese will not rise up because they are all brainwashed.
Does this accurately convey your point of view? If you have such a low opinion of the Chinese, why do you bother to lament their lack of democracy?

There's surprising little to clarify when you stop attempting to put words in my mouth. Calling out your white-washing history isn't the same as having the low opinion of the Chinese you're attempting to attribute to me.

Now that all that's out of the way I'm confident you can, "...take the time to respond to [my earlier] points".